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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28102296">Looks So Nasty in Those Khakis</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric'>hopeless_eccentric</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>(Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [30]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Penumbra Podcast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aliases, Cargo Shorts, Crack Treated Seriously, Domestic Fluff, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Heist, Humor, Junoverse | Juno Steel Universe, Nureyev Wears Cargo Shorts, Other, Use of Khakis as a Plot Device, nureyev has to pose as a barbecue dad and he Does Not Vibe, some of my favorite aliases ive ever come up with</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:35:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,633</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28102296</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Juno had known Nureyev long enough to know that their mission, entering a party and ingratiating themselves to the wealthy host, was the least of his problems. Once Peter swallowed his pride and went over to talk to him, Juno knew the mission would be completed in a heartbeat. Nureyev was charming and charismatic and a breath of fresh air in any crowd.</p><p>Rather, the issue lay in the cargo shorts.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>(Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [30]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1921492</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>149</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Looks So Nasty in Those Khakis</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hey all!! this one's a pretty fun time but do enjoy</p><p>Content warnings for food and drink</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Remind me to turn in my resignation to Captain Aurinko once we return to the ship,” Nureyev grimaced, all too happy to bury his face behind a glass of fruit punch, of all things.</p><p>“What was that, darling?” Buddy called through his comms.</p><p>“He’s still mad about the shorts,” Juno snorted.</p><p>“I am not—“ Nureyev sputtered out, though it seemed this was too great a lie to say so openly to his captain and his mouth fell shut. “I’m afraid this party environment isn’t exactly my usual fare. That will make no difference to the quality of my work, I assure you.”</p><p>“He’s still mad about the shorts,” Juno clarified, face falling when a confused looking party guest walked a little too close. “Shit.”</p><p>“Well, thank you for the call, mother, but I’m afraid we ought to get back to this—“ Nureyev broke off to let his lip curl. “Shindig.”</p><p>“Bye, mom!” Juno added, just a little too loud.</p><p>Juno waited until the call had ended to start cackling, bent double and thanking his lucky stars that the party they were meant to infiltrate was outside and noisy already.</p><p>“You’re never mentioning that again,” Nureyev warned with an angry sip of his cherry red drink.</p><p>“I’m mentioning that every day for the rest of my life,” Juno wheezed. “Mom? Really?”</p><p>“Hush,” Nureyev huffed, crossing his arms over the bright tropical print of his shirt and glaring over the rims of his novelty sunglasses. “I’m having a terrible enough time as it is.”</p><p>“Hank,” Juno groaned the name of his alias, as much to annoy Nureyev as get his attention.</p><p>“Jennifer, you’re going to give me an ulcer,” Nureyev cut him off.</p><p>Juno had known Nureyev long enough to know that their mission, entering a party and ingratiating themselves to the wealthy host, was the least of his problems. Once Peter swallowed his pride and went over to talk to him, Juno knew the mission would be completed in a heartbeat. Nureyev was charming and charismatic and a breath of fresh air in any crowd.</p><p>Rather, the issue lay in the cargo shorts.</p><p>Most of the various wealthy individuals they had to coax out of their money were the kinds of people who hosted gatherings in ballrooms with an expected dress code of gowns and heels and a half inch of makeup per guest. The food would be coated in gold leaf just to make a statement and the host would look more like a glittering beetle than a person behind their diamond-encrusted clothes. Parties would seldom involve backyards or barbecues, or, to Nureyev’s chagrin, grills.</p><p>It seemed self proclaimed ‘golf dad’ Greg Richardson was an eccentric type, fond of a certain brand of Americana that harkened back to a simpler time of khakis and chunky sandals and Hawaiian shirts. Juno hadn’t expected to fit in so well, but after Rita went to all the trouble of picking out a button down with just the right pink flamingos to compliment the shade of his nails, he couldn’t find himself complaining. The shorts were comfortable and the sock-sandal combination made Nureyev’s face turn a particularly adorable shade of puce.</p><p>Nureyev, on the other hand, was in about the farthest thing possible from his element. </p><p>The memory of Nureyev’s groan from the bathroom when first trying on the outfit still rang clear in Juno’s mind.</p><p>“You okay in there?” Juno had called while Nureyev’s head audibly collided with the counter.</p><p>“I’m hideous,” Nureyev lamented.</p><p>“They’re cargo shorts, Nureyev, how bad can they be?”</p><p>Peter had merely let out a sigh, and from the sound of it, spent the next few minutes trying to see if makeup could do something for him that squares of khaki and a floral print could not. When he finally resurfaced from the bathroom, it was with a jab-wary squint and only his head poking past the door.</p><p>“Juno, love,” he began, tentative.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“If I step out, will you promise not to make fun of me?”</p><p>Juno snorted.</p><p>“I don’t like lying to you, Nureyev,” he returned, stifling a preemptive laugh behind his hand at Nureyev’s fond glare. “Okay, okay, I won’t make fun of you.”</p><p>“I feel so cherished,” Nureyev returned flatly. “Here I go.”</p><p>Juno had expected something horrendous, perhaps stripes of pink and green or some pattern so unforgivable it took out his one remaining eye. However, Nureyev merely seethed in his overlarge khaki shorts, arms crossed over his chest in a pitiful attempt at hiding a red and white floral pattern.</p><p>Juno blinked.</p><p>“Well? Are you going to mock me or not?” Nureyev demanded.</p><p>“That shade of red looks nice on you,” Juno said, quite honestly.</p><p>“You’re bluffing.”</p><p>“I mean, the rest is a goddamned atrocity, but—”</p><p>Nureyev’s laugh broke him off. Whatever wave of disgust had been threatening to curl his lip permanently shattered and Peter bent double at the sheer absurdity of it all. Even if he walked over to take his seat on the bed like the entire outfit was coated in infectious disease, he still didn’t protest when Juno slung an arm around his shoulder so he could justify the occasion as laughing with Nureyev, rather than merely at him.</p><p>“How am I supposed to do a heist like this?” Nureyev finally managed when he came up for air.</p><p>“Well, you’ve got all those pockets. It’s kinda your thing,” Juno shrugged.</p><p>“Yes, but how am I meant to have an iota of charisma?”</p><p>“By being charming and knowing how to talk to people—”</p><p>“Juno, do you see anything remotely attractive about this—” Peter sputtered off in search of a word vile enough to describe such a sin as khaki cargo shorts. “Number?”</p><p>“Yeah, your ass looks great in those shorts,” Juno said, then immediately bent double wheezing.</p><p>“Are you making fun of my ass or my shorts?” Nureyev scoffed.</p><p>“Your shorts,” Juno snorted. “Can’t make fun of what you don’t have.”</p><p>“Juno Steel,” Peter warned.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m lucky I’m cute or whatever,” he chuckled.</p><p>“You’re lucky I love you,” Nureyev corrected, even if his eyes still burned with a silent, albeit joking rage.</p><p>After the two of them had managed some humor about the whole situation, spending some time making up over Juno’s khaki-based infractions by trying to create some sort of overly suburbanite backstory for Hank and Jennifer Chandler, Juno had expected that to be nearly the end of it. However, Nureyev had donned his Hawaiian shirt like battle armor before an impossible fight, doing nothing more than turning scarlet when Rita offered him a shiny pair of novelty sunglasses to accompany the mission.</p><p>Juno, of course, had been more than happy to take the hot pink eyewear, and even as the afternoon burned out towards evening, kept his gaze shielded like an overly cheerful parody of a Dark Matters agent.</p><p>“I don’t know how you did it,” he said at one point, the pair of them leaning against a fence and waiting for an opening on good, old fashioned grill-side dad-to-dad conversation.</p><p>“Did what?” </p><p>“I mean, when we first met, you had sunglasses on, like, the entire time,” Juno snorted. “Inside too. I can’t believe I fell for an asshole who wore sunglasses inside like some kind of self aggrandizing B-list celebrity.”</p><p>“I thought you said they made me look handsome,” Nureyev huffed.</p><p>“I said they made you look like a dick.”</p><p>“A handsome dick?”</p><p>Juno opened his mouth to disagree, but couldn’t help but laugh.</p><p>“Yeah. Whatever. Shut up,” Juno snorted. “My giant handsome dick of a husband who somehow manages to make cargo shorts look good.”</p><p>“I thought you were rather opposed,” Nureyev mused. “What did you call them again? An atrocity?”</p><p>“Shut up,” Juno laughed. “I can be morally inconsistent or whatever. Chicks dig bad—”</p><p>Juno broke off, swinging for the right word like a blindfolded child at a piñata.</p><p>“People?”</p><p>Juno missed the piñata.</p><p>“Jennifer,” Nureyev groaned into his hand. “I’m not a ‘chick,’ as you put it.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, the grill looks clear. Why don’t you see if you can elbow your way in?” Juno deflected.</p><p>“As you may have noticed over the course of the last year,” Nureyev huffed. “I can hardly cook to save my life. If you expect me to grill—”</p><p>“Nah, I expect you to look hungry and make nice conversation. Say your wife’s half starved ‘cause you can’t cook for him to save your life. Hit a sympathetic nerve or something. Talk about how you want kids but I won’t say yes until you learn how to flip a synth burger,” Juno shrugged, earnestly trying not to look so smug.</p><p>Nureyev glared, but with a kiss to the back of Juno’s hand, parted for the grill.</p><p>“Hope you can figure it out, honey!” Juno called with a wave. “I’m hungry!”</p><p>“Hi hungry, I’m Hank!” Nureyev called back, years of acting somehow shedding the anger from his voice. However, no matter how good he was of a liar, he could not shed the visible cringe from his face. </p><p>Juno choked down the rest of his fruit punch and leaned back on the white picket fence. Nureyev laid an elbow on the edge of the deck and softened his smile for the sake of conversation. Even as he turned his back to sweet talk his way into the good books of a cheerful looking grill master whose crimes against button downs were even worse than his own, Juno still kept an eye out. </p><p>It was sweet, in a way. Nureyev subconsciously proved his own insecurities wrong by charming his way through khaki-clad conversation while Juno played the smitten wife, a part that hardly required any acting. </p><p>“Huh,” he chuckled to himself. “His ass really does look good in those shorts.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>YEEHAW!! glad you made it to the end!!</p><p>Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or ill start wearing more jorts</p><p>Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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